Reducing bureaucracy for public sector frontline staff: Briefing for the ...

20 Part Two Reducing bureaucracy for public sector frontline staff
2.9 The Better Regulation Executive is also helping Departments to identify where
bureaucracy can be reduced. An online portal, set up originally to gather suggestions
for reducing bureaucracy from businesses, has been extended to provide ‘a voice for
frontline workers’ whereby staff can submit simplification proposals. Departments then
review the proposals and take them forward where possible. These proposals typically
centre on encouraging more joined up working across government and greater use of
time saving measures such as on-line applications.
2.10 Departments have implemented initiatives to engage with frontline staff, particularly
using gateway groups to consider the level of unnecessary bureaucracy on the public
sector and to reduce data streams. Some were set up in response to the public
sector strategy, for example, the Department of Health’s Streamlining Data Collections
Board, while other Departments have used existing bodies to review data streams. For
example, a panel comprising head teachers and local authority representatives, formed
in the Department for Children, Schools and Families in 1999 has been revived and
the Department intends the panel to act as gatekeepers of data. The use of dedicated
groups to review data requests has also yielded results. (Figure 9) Some Departments
are taking imaginative approaches to engaging with the frontline. For example the
Department for Children, Schools and Families has disseminated the key messages from
its 2008 simplification plan into e-mail updates with circulation to over 32,000 schools.
2.11 Departments have also sought to tackle bureaucracy through other measures
such as improving information technology systems, streamlining forms and data sharing
(Figure 10 provides some examples).
Figure 9
The Home Offi ce’s annual data requirement process for the police has
yielded results
Data provided by the police to the Home Office is set by an Annual Data Requirement process, by
which the Home Office and the police forces agree on the minimum data required to operate efficiently.
The Department has imposed a moratorium on additions to the Annual Data Requirement until 2011 and
has reduced the number of separate data requests each year so far; from 89 in 2007-08, to 82 proposed
for 2009-10.
Source: Simplification plans